Zoe Saldaña's 2025 awards season has been anything but boring. Just within the last few weeks, the star has won two awards for her role as Rita Mora Castro in Emilia Pérez, first a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and then a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor. To close out her busy season, the recent Harper’s Bazaar cover star decided to road-test a major trend at the 2025 Oscars: a softer, modern take on Old Hollywood hair.
Between several awards shows this season and a press tour Emilia Pérez, Saldaña has worn a slew of styles from slicked-back updos and sculptural ponytails. But tonight, the actress pulled inspiration from a classic era. Saldaña stepped onto the red carpet at the 2025 Oscars in a custom layered maroon Saint Laurent dress and black sheer opera gloves that perfectly complemented her soft, glamorous waves, draped down her back and softly tucked behind her ears.
After seeing the dress, Saldaña’s hairstylist Mara Roszak said she immediately knew the maroon number called for the hair to be down.
“Zoe’s hair almost always starts with the dress and then the ideation of the glam look comes,” Roszak tells Bazaar. “We felt like this dress called for a hair down moment, feminine and romantic, timeless. Zoe wanted to feel like herself and, as gorgeous as her hair is up, there is something very romantic about her with her hair down. We created this feminine, romantic, timeless look with a soft bend that looked especially great with her healthy, shiny hair.”
Roszak said Saldaña’s healthy hair added to the finished result. “Zoe is very much a hair gal,” Roszak says. “She knows her hair so well and takes really good care of it. She’s about hair health over anything.” Roszak says the actress used The Foundation Shampoo and Conditioner from her line RŌZ, which recently became available at Sephora, before arriving in the chair. Roszak first went in with the RŌZ AIR Thickening Spray and Root Lift Spray to give hold and ensure the waves lasted, while also protecting hair from heat, which “is essential for maintaining Zoe’s signature healthy, shiny hair,” she adds. Then, Roszak added a pump of the RŌZ Santa Lucia Styling Oil on the ends for added protection
After drying the hair with the Dyson Supersonic and the diffuser attachment, Roszak added Covet and Mane tape-in hair extensions in Portofino and Dubai to add more depth to the wavy style. Roszak loves testing her clean, high-performance hair products on the red carpet ahead of their debuts, like the new Evergreen Style Cream, which she used as a final step to smooth Saldaña’s strands and give the curls hold and longevity.
Saldaña will take the stage tonight as one of the presenters and is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Rita Mora Castro in Emilia Pérez. It's no coincidence that Roszak has styled hair for four other Best Actress winners within the last decade, including two-time winner Emma Stone, Brie Larson, and Michelle Yeoh, so Roszak's styling may bring Saldaña some good look at tonight's Academy Awards.
Saldaña’s hair wasn’t the only shiny part of her look—the actress complemented her healthy hair with luminous makeup courtesy of an intense skin prep. It all started with celebrity facialist Lord Gavin McLeod-Valentine, who gave Saldaña’s skin a lift and glow with Augustinus Bader’s skincare products. Then, makeup artist Vera Steimberg used two LED masks to get Saldaña red carpet ready. “We flew to Paris for the Cèsar Awards [last week] and then had to immediately fly back into town for the Oscars, which was dehydrating on her skin,” Steinberg tells Bazaar. Since Saldaña wore a strapless dress, Steimberg wanted to give her a full glow from the forehead to the décolletage. She used both the CurrentBody Skin Series 2 LED Mask and the CurrentBody Skin LED Neck & Décolletage Mask ahead of makeup. “It gave her a glow and woke up the skin up after so much flying,” Steimberg says. “The CurrentBody treatments make such a difference on the process of getting ready and making sure that we can get her skin back to where we need it for the red carpet.” Steimberg kept Saldaña's face natural and glowy with light pink eyeshadow and glossy pink lips.
